Eli Lilly has been censured by the U.K. marketing watchdog after a complainant reported being hit by a “bombardment of spam.”
The complainant contacted the U.K.’s self-regulatory body, the PMCPA, after repeatedly seeing a sponsored Facebook post by a medical publisher, according to the PMCPA’s case report. The complainant, who works in oncology, said they saw the ad 71 times in 11 days.
The post linked to a Lilly-sponsored article about breast cancer therapy. Based on comments on the post, the complainant concluded that Facebook was serving the ad to the general public, which would violate U.K. laws around prescription drug advertising.
In its initial response to the PMCPA, Lilly said it had asked the medical publisher to stop disseminating the sponsored article and found that the project didn’t undergo a U.K. compliance review because one employee based outside the country failed to follow proper procedures. Lilly accepted that it had failed to maintain high standards but denied breaching other aspects of the U.K. marketing code.
The PMCPA reached a different conclusion, finding Lilly breached eight clauses of the code but sparing it the ignominy of being found to have brought discredit on the industry.
Lilly and the PMCPA reached different conclusions in part because of their divergent views on so-called arm’s-length arrangements, which the PMCPA defines as cases where a drugmaker sponsors content that’s created and managed with total independence by a third party.
Lilly told the PMCPA that the article was created under an arm’s-length arrangement and, as such, the dissemination of the content shouldn’t be considered promotional. However, the PMCPA noted that the publisher sent Lilly monthly traffic reports and promised a certain level of dissemination of the sponsored article to argue that the relationship didn’t meet the arm’s-length definition.
The Pixel cookies that Facebook and its parent company Meta use to track people online were another key topic in the case. Lilly said the publisher used cookies to target people who had given permission to advertorial interactions. The PMCPA’s different view on the cookies informed the conclusion that Lilly breached Clause 15.5, which limits digital promotional communications to people who have given prior permission
“The Panel did not consider that a pharmaceutical company could rely on a reference to Facebook in a cookie policy and the acceptance of a Pixel cookie to demonstrate that it had met the requirements of Clause 15.5 and consent, in relation to the dissemination of a promotional Facebook post, to a health professional’s personal Facebook account,” the PMCPA said.
The complainant appealed the original ruling that Lilly hadn’t brought discredit on the industry, but the appeal board upheld the original decision. While voicing concern that one person’s error had bypassed the U.K. review, the appeal board accepted that Lilly’s procedures would have flagged the noncompliant activity if they had been followed.